Red Thujas finished

I was away at for a business meeting and since they supplied us with playdoh and other toys to keep us awake and alert I figured I was going to take my knitting in the meetings. That created more attention then I thought, but non negative. And now my red Thujas are finished.

I have upon returning home also tried to take a picture of my Bob sweater before it goes into storage, but standing in my bath tub on my toes with a three section mirror does not make for great photos possible.


I have finished reading three books since I last posted. Letter from Home by Carolyn Hart, Im Westen nichts Neues by Erich Maria Remarque (one from my November and Stack Challange list) and Fatal Tide by Iris Johanson which I got from my boyfriend. All three were good reads and I am glad I finally read Im Westen nichts Neues. Sitting around in airports and on planes you get an awful lot read. I am now reading Blind Assassin by Margret Atwood so I guess book 3 for the November challange (Catch 22) will not actually be read in November, but as it also counts for my Stack Challange I will read it in December.

Norovember

Naturally I had no sooner put the Norovember pic up on my blog that I did anything but knit on my Noro cardigan. I cast on a vest. I knit socks, I started my Sharfika version of Fetching... But not a stitch on my Noro. And nothing will get done on it next week when I am out of town for a business trip. I guess I will need Norcember, too.

A three way Tie

You scored as XIX: The Sun. This is the happiest card in the deck. It is full of joy and optimism, everything is right with the world. We are as innocent children playing in the fields without care. The Sun brings success, well-being and happiness in all spheres - material, emotional, spiritual -wherever our desires lay.When this card appears in a Tarot spread it indicates success, joy and happiness. Obstacles will be overcome, goals achieved.When badly aspected, it can indicate a stagnation through over-indulgence, too much of a good thing.

XIX: The Sun 63%
XVI: The Tower 63%
XIII: Death 63%
II - The High Priestess 56%
IV - The Emperor 56%
III - The Empress 56%
VI: The Lovers 50%
XI: Justice 50%
X - Wheel of Fortune 50%
I - Magician 44%
0 - The Fool 38%
VIII - Strength 31%
XV: The Devil 25%

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

Book Meme

Meme Instructions : Look at the list of books below. Highlight in red the ones you’ve read, highlight in green the ones you might read, leave the ones you won’t read in black, italicize the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you’ve never even heard of.

The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
The Cacther in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife by audry Niffenegger
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1984 by George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaba by J.K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Crytonomicon by Neal Stephenson
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Sadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zago
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Dune by Frank Herbert
The History of Love by Nichole Krauss

I have no idea who came up with the list originally, but it was sort of interesting to see how many I actually have and how many are TBR.

Pat Barker's Another World

This is the first of my books that I wanted to read in November to remember WWI and WWII. I had read Barker's Regeneration Triology, but while Another World is an interesting book it is not as intense as the triology.

Nick is a man with a patchwork family and a pregnant wife as well as a sick grandfather who is while approaching death relives the horrors of WWI. While I liked the basic story and the voice of the book, I feel it fell short of what it could have been. There was a bit about Nick and his family's disfunctionalities reflected in the earlier owners of their house and a bit of the horror of Somme reflected in Geordie's story, but it remained superficial and none of the stories really drew me in.

But at least it is out of my stack now.

Reading Challanges

Kailana’s November Reading Challenge: “It will soon be the month of November, and I have been thinking about it a lot lately. In Canada, November is the month that Remembrance Day falls in, being November 11th. So, I got to thinking, I might do a reading challenge where I read books set in World War I and World War II.”

I have decided to have a go at this too:

1. Pat Barker's Another World (which has a WWI surviver in it and I will count it)
2. Catch 22
3. Im Westen nichts Neues

These are all in my book stack and so can count towards my From the Stacks Winter Reading Challenge. I will add two more to that one:

4. Widow for one Year
5. Blind Assassin

The challange here is to read 5 books from the stack by end of January. I am cheating in having my books in both challanges, but they qualify for both.

I have read this weekend the last two books of the Spiderwick series. I have enjoyed them, though they were not the best children's fantasy that I have read.

Wee One Pumpkins

Heart in Hand Pumpkins
Originally uploaded by kucki68.

This is the cross stitch that I actually finished stitching at the beginning of November. The colors are different than the leaflet and I wonder what's up with that as mine have photographed close to reality. The pattern is by Heart in Hands and was a quick and fun fall project. Naturally I messed up three places, but I dare you to find them and so I am not frogging.

I am not sure what I will do with it, but am currently considering making a whole year and turning them in a quilt. Or having one for each month in a small frame and switch through the year. Do you have any ideas?

Jaywalkers

Jaywalkers
Originally uploaded by kucki68.

These are my rendition of Grumperia's Jaywalkers from MagKnits. I completely missed the craze when Cara at January One had everyone knitting this pattern in Socks That Rock yarn, but I did like what I saw. After a false start with an Opal yarn these socks were done in Regia Cotton. I don't remember the colorway. Despite them being fraternal and having made the ribbed section to long, I like my Jaywalkers. I made each of the pattern repeats 2 stitches less and they fit very nicely.

Cutaway

Cutaway
Originally uploaded by kucki68.

As you can see I got MyGuy to take a picture of me in my cutaway. Obviously the man who takes wonderful pictures of landscapes and the like and I need to discuss his attention to detail for fashion shots as the cutaway looks better in real live. I am not sure he understood why I wanted a picture of my cardigan. ;^)

Cutaway is a pattern by Chicknits and I enjoyed knitting it.. If I make it again (and that is not impossible) I will have to make the sleeves a bit shorter. The yarn is darker and heathier than the photo shows. It is made of Schachenmayr nomotta Extra, 100% wool.

The two and a half left over balls will at some point become a red scarf for the Orphan's project, though it might be for 2008 or even later.

Photos?

Well, I bought one of the doodas for uploading pics from the memory stick in MyGuy's old camera and uploaded pics in Flickr. (Yeah me!) Now let's see if I can get them to show up in the blog.

Let's try with the pic of the quilt for my friend Andrea that I finally sent out to her. Only one months late...

The pattern is called FlickFlack and I was trying to get an effect of flowers on a meadow. My mom did the quilting and has crated petals in the flickflacks and blades of grass in the green border. She is great at quilting for me and I love to challenge her.

Cross Stitch Threads

Today's SBQ was suggested by Jan and is:How many different brands of "complete" embroidery floss sets do you own? How do you keep track of it? (i.e., spread sheet program, index cards, palm pilot, etc.)

I have a good bunch of Anchor, but no where to complete and I have a couple of Gather Sampler Threads and would love to have all of that. A geew Weeks Works added in and that is it. Pityful, hm?

Looking for a tutorial

I am getting fed up with all that GREEN here. Does anyone know a tutorial for me (no idea about any of this at this moment) to help me change the color of my template?

Thanks in advance.

Finishes and Semi-finishes

This weekend I did some of the things that I had been dragging my feet about: added a button to CeCe (wearing it now over a black longsleeved shirt), sewed around the button hole on my cutaway so that finally the button would stay closed and while I was at it I added the button on my white summer trousers back on. Now CeCe and Cutaway are finally finished.

On Friday I have finished the toes on my first Child's First Sock and on my first Thuja for me. I have also cast on for the second "Child" sock and a new Make Waves sock. I worked on the yellow opal sock in Twin Rib some more and while I like the yarn quality I think I will not buy this sort of self patterning yarn anymore. The black sock that I started for Petra's Witch Sock contest will have to be ripped as I messed the spideer chart up several times and am now in a position to no longer manage to finagle things. So the sock is in time out until next weekend when it will get ripped. This are the semi finishes.

Last week I joined the Red Sweater KAL and obviously that was all it needed for me to finally finish my red summer sweater. Bob (from Knitty) was bound of at 9pm and thanks to my alterations (knitting a Raglan in the round instead of in pieces flat) it was sewn up and all ends woven in by 9:40. It looks good too, so I am happy. Unfortunatelly with around 5 degrees Celsius it is a bit cold for short sleeves.

I finally got the old digi cam from MyGuy and took some pictures, but to upload them I need a loading station/cable and that I have to buy first. So it will take a bit longer until this is a blog with pics.